Greetings.

My Brother and I have a range set up out on our family farm, where we can shoot out to 600yds if we wish. I'd like to set up a few gongs at various distances, and am looking for advice as to how to properly hang them. Many of those I see in videos or advertisements show the target with a down/back angle - I assume this is to deflect bullet/fragments down into the ground- what angle is appropriate? Frame? Chains for hangers? What other considerations to I need to be aware of? What's working for you?

I work as a laser operator for a manufacturing company (ag products) and have easy access to various sized remnants of 1/2" and 3/4" AR 450. Between myself and our plasma operator we've been squirreling away chunks here and there to the point that I can probably hang a target at 50 yard intervals for the full distance. Most of these are anywhere from 10-14 inches square. A couple are as large as 28x48 - I was thinking of making a cardboard cutout of a coyote to spray around for those. If you'd care to take a few photos of your setup - how it hangs, connectors, etc, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Kaiser Norton

The T Post brackets that JC Steel Targets makes are my favorite method for hanging steel.

John

This has worked out ok for our spot. Just some rebar and a broke strap I cut up.

You got any old kicker belting, cut some strips 2.5"-3" wide and hang it from that. Weld a 3/4" bolt to the back of your plates to serve as connection point to your straps, secure with a flat washer and nylok nut. For larger plates, use two studs and two straps. Make yourself some sort of structure either out of steel or 4x4s.

My advice is hang them close to the ground so it is easier to spot misses. I just use a 2x4 spanning two t posts. I attach the 2x4 with U-bolts. I use heavy rubber bungees to hang them.

I use a similar setup to Higbean, A chunk of fire hose bolted to the backside of the plate with two bolts.

If you hit the plate it rings, If you hit the hose/strap it wiggles but no ring.
Multiple shots through the hose and no failures yet, they work just fine.

Here's a stand I made out of black iron pipe, and belts from a roll baler. The rear legs are adjstable and the legs will seperate from the cross bar with the pull of 2 pins for easier transport. The total cost of the stand was about $60. The plate is 24"x24".

I use two T posts and a couple rubber bungee straps.Depending on the height of the post I might hook one end of the bungee over the top of the post. If I want to lower the target without driving the post in deeper I just wrap the one end around the post two or three times and hook it on itself. If you hook the plate from the back side it pretty much takes a direct hit on the hook to break it.

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This is an AR500 Yote I made...I have changed it to a hanging bracket since this picture..I would suggest cutting you attachment holes in the target vs welding on it...

I hang them from old round baler belts, cut into 2" wide strips.

Couple of more ideas. I used pieces cut from a mud flap picked up off the road, using T-post with pipe tees that I think was 1 1/4 inch but could have been 1 1/2 inch and a piece of rebar to span. I like to use what I have around when possible. miles

18 wheeler mud flaps are what I use for hanging material

1/2" rebar for my stands and brackets made from pipe

"Bang a Gong" that's racist!!! Sounds like something you would do in Vietnam...

Check out HangFast Targets.

Building this at our deer camp range.

T-posts driven in about a foot
Span with 5/8 rebar wired to each T-post, 10' piece spans 3 T-posts

I Have the AR500 with Mickey Mouse ears ( ), with 1/2 bolts to hang from

I have tow strap I've cut to 2' length and punched holes in both ends to accept the bolts at steel and hook or wire to rebar. Easy peasy

Instead of strapping I am now playing with shade cloth or widow screen material. They're cheap, easy to cut in strips and they can take a bunch of hits before needing to be replaced. Again, easy peasy

This can either sit on a T-post or hang from the chain, pretty handy set up. This is a friends, I made up two smaller versions that work great.

We use old worn out discs off the plow. Drive em into the ground with a length of rebar.

From a post I made some years ago with updates in italics after using this for a while:


Anything you put downrange will eventually take a hit so except for the target itself everything else should be considered expendable.

The one pictured here goes anywhere. Pound two holes in the ground about 8 to 10" deep and just stick the legs in the holes. For a long range target I'd make the crossbar a bit wider. Also for a permanent range you could drive two pieces of pipe into the ground and put the legs in those. Mine is used at a public range where I have to take it home after use.

- Steel plate from Jcvibby here on 24hcf.
- Bent piece of rebar, a few bucks from Home Depot or any construction supply place. Any grown man can bend 1/2" rebar by hand.
- Cut up strips of mud flap from a truck supply company. Mud flap was $8, it's big enough to make about 16 strips. If you can find one used or free that would be even cheaper. The rubber takes a lot of hits and keeps going.
- mounting hardware from anywhere. Use hardened bolts but the nuts and washers can be whatever. The wings on those wing nuts snapped off just from the shock transmitted through the target. I use standard nuts with lock washers now and tighten them as much as possible.

My hanging system is probably needlessly complicated in it's use of hardware, I'm sure inventive minds can come up with something even easier.

Just remember that whatever you use to hang the target will get shot eventually. The further away the target the greater the odds of that. Keep spare hangers around. The rubber will take direct hits but a bullet just hitting the edge of a target in front of a strap spews hot shrapnel and will cut it in half like a knife through butter.

This is an 8" round but I use the same setup for 12x12" squares although with a larger length of rebar. You're only limited to what you can hang up by the length of the piece of rebar you can bend.